MattW
Conductor
I've heard it said a few times that European equipment is actually more survivable than equipment built to our crash standards. How true is this actually? I know the high speed stuff (TGV, Velaro, AVE etc.) is likely built a bit tougher than say a local-service DMU train, but seeing the pictures from the recent German crash has me rethinking a bit on their crash standards overall. That DMU was utterly annihilated. As Jis mentioned in the new tunnel topic, HSR elsewhere operates over existing conventional trackage near the terminal before switching onto the high speed tracks farther out from the cities. Other than places on the NEC, that means sharing with freight traffic here and as we know, the FRA requires either completely dedicated track, or time-shifting the freight services which I'm sure wouldn't go over too well with the freight companies. Is something like the Velaro able to adequately survive a hit from a freight train while operating at conventional speeds on conventional trackage?
